


Get Lost

by aintweproudriff



Series: Camp Mile Away [1]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Crushes, Established Relationship, F/F, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, another camp au, its going to be all over the place, nonbinary buttons, nonbinary specs, the delanceys are just kinda there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13173132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: Prompt: Spralmer Summer Camp AuOf course I had to write a summer camp au at some point. Because we all need more of these, I think.Title from First Time He Kissed a Boy by Kadie Elder.





	1. Spot's POV

**Author's Note:**

> yaaay another camp au
> 
> I've only ever been to Bible camp so that's my inspiration here. Let's hope it's good enough!

The familiar smell of pine filled Spot’s lungs and he couldn’t help but smile. It was the same sensation every year he went to Camp Mile Away. He heard Jack slam his car door and turned around, looking back at his siblings and his mom. 

“Okay,” Medda pushed her hair out of her face after opening the trunk of her car. “We’ve got a bag for Spot, and a sleeping bag for Spot,” she passed the luggage to Jack, who handed the bags to Spot. “A bag and a few blankets for Smalls.” Jack handed those to his sister. “And Jack’s things too,” Medda peered inside to check for any loose items, and pulled out a pair of sneakers. “Whose are these?”

“Oh, mine,” Smalls reached out for them and stuck them in her bag. 

“Okay, check in time. Let’s go, people, come on,” Jack all but shoved his family out of the tiny dirt parking lot. 

“What’s got you in a rush?” Medda laughed, purposefully walking a little slower.

“It’s been two weeks since he’s seen David and Crutchie,” Spot teased. Jack turned around and stuck his tongue out. “Jackie misses his boooyfriends,” Spot laughed loudly. 

“Oh that’s sweet,” Medda smiled and sped up her pace, but Spot and Smalls stayed behind. 

“Good luck dealing with those three lovebirds, if they’re in your cabin,” Smalls whispered, pulling her bag up and setting it on her waist. 

“Don’t speak so soon,” Spot pointed out. “You definitely have to deal with Katherine and Sarah.”

“Ugh,” Smalls tossed her head back. “That’s right. I forgot how bad they can get sometimes.”

“They ain’t as bad as Jack and Davey and Crutchie, though.”

“No,” she admitted. “They aren’t. But Kath and Sarah are just gonna remind me that I’m the most single person ever. I mean, except you,” she grinned, trying to get on his nerves.

Spot brushed off the insult. “But isn’t Sniper gonna be here?” he reminded her, and she glared. “That’ll be good, right? To have a friend in your cabin. Oh, and she’s another very single girl who likes girls, so you’ll have something to bond over. Huh,” he mused, “maybe somethin’ will happen between you and her. Oh wait!” he feigned surprise. “Smalls, don’t you- don’t you like, really like her?”

She shoved him with her shoulder. “I’m never drinking when you’re around ever again.”

“That’s probably a smart idea.”

When they reached the door of the dining hall, both Spot and Smalls were still bickering, while Medda and Jack chatted. 

“Are you two gonna be like this all camp?” Medda asked, but her amusement was obvious.

“No,” Smalls shook her head innocently. “We’ll be in different cabins.”

Medda rolled her eyes, walking up to the desk that the camp had set up. “Hello, Ms. Hannah,” she smiled politely. “Jack Kelly, Spot Conlon, and Smalls Larkin are here.”

“Yes yes,” Hannah smiled back, and Spot was reminded of how she always sounded like a bird. “You’re all signed in! Mr. Kelly, you are on the blue team,” she put a blue sticker on his nametag and handed it to him. Spot thought he saw Jack pump his fist at being placed on the team of his favorite color. “And Mr. Conlon and Miss Larkin, you are on the red team.”

“Thank you, Miss Hannah,” Smalls stuck the nametag to her shirt. 

“And you three can go get your camp shirts from Mr. Wiesel,” Hannah pointed them to another desk.

Jack grumbled something indistinguishable. He’d never like Mr. Wiesel very much, which Spot only vaguely understood. He assumed that Jack held a grudge because Wiesel had been the one in charge of giving punishments when Jack was in elementary school. But Spot thought it was petty to keep hating someone because they’d made you wash dishes for a few extra hours after dinner instead of playing. And it was only Mr. Wiesel’s job, to be fair. It wasn’t Wiesel’s fault that Jack was always in trouble. 

They walked downhill from the dining hall to the cabins. It was one big block of cabins, really, like a strip mall. Spot looked at each door, reading the lists of names. 

Girls Cabin  
Smalls  
Katherine  
Sarah  
Sniper

“Hey look!” he called to Smalls, who was next to Jack. “This is your cabin! And Sniper’s here!” 

Gender Neutral Cabin  
Specs  
Buttons

“Guess they finally came to their senses,” Jack chuckled, pointing at the sign. 

“Or Specs’s mom called the camp enough that they gave in,” Smalls raised her eyebrows.

“Either way is fine with me.”

Boys Cabin 1  
Jack  
Romeo  
David  
Crutchie  
Jojo  
Morris  
Mush

Boys Cabin 2  
Spot  
Race  
Oscar  
Henry  
Blink  
Albert  
Elmer

“Oh, that’s for me,” Spot nodded. “Decent group of cabin mates, I guess. It could be worse. Jack could be in my cabin.”

Jack didn’t listen, he set the his bags down. “Bye mom,” he hugged Medda tightly. “Yes I’ll be good, yes I’ll miss you too, yes I’ll have fun and be safe,” he answered before she could open her mouth.

“That’s my boy,” she smiled and hugged him back.

Spot put his bags down too. “Bye mama,” he hugged her. “I promise I’ll act better than Jack does.”

She let him go and looked at his face. “That’s not very reassuring.”

Smalls hugged her last. “I’ll keep them in line, mom.”

“That doesn’t help me much either,” Medda laughed, and looked at Jack. “Is David here yet?”

“Y-yeah, he’s in the cabin,” Jack pointed, and Medda closed her eyes and stuck her head in. 

“David Jacobs!” she called.

“Yes?” he answered. She turned her head in the direction of his voice.

“Keep my kids in line, will you?”

“You can open your eyes, Miss Medda, no one’s changing in here,” he laughed as she opened her eyes. “I can only really account for Jack, ma’am, and even that is iffy. But I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.” She stepped back outside. “Now him, I trust.”

“Mom!” Jack protested, but she laughed and kissed his forehead, then Spot’s, then Smalls’s, and then left. 

Spot rolled his eyes and picked his bag up. He’d only made it a few steps into the cabin when he felt himself be tackled. “Spottie!” was the last thing he heard before he fell over. 

“Hi, Race, getoffame.” Spot pushed his friend away and stood back up. “Race, it’s only been two weeks since school ended. 

“Yeah, and I missed you!” 

“You’re a dramatic piece of -”

“Hi Spottie!” a voice called from the top bunk. Spot glared at it instinctively. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Henry grinned at him. “Is only Race allowed to call you that? I wonder why that would be?”

Spot ignored him. “Who else is here?”

“Only Albert, and he’s out walking around,” Race said, sitting down on the bottom bunk. “He’s up on that bed,” he pointed at the top bunk of the bed next to him. “And you’re above me.”

“What if I wanna be somewhere else?” Spot said, but threw his bags on the bed above Race. “Sucks that the Delanceys are back, huh?” he climbed up the ladder. 

“Yeah,” Henry moaned. “I wonder when they’ll get that we don’t want them here.”

“It’s just because their parents don’t want them at home, either,” Race explained, as if he knew everything. “Besides. Only one of them is in here. Could you imagine another summer with both of them?”

“They probably split them up so that only one of them is in a cabin with Jack,” Spot reasoned, making himself comfortable on the bed. “Remember a few years ago when he fought both of them?”

“Yeah. He won pretty good too.”

“That’s true, he did,” Race nodded. 

“Not the point,” Spot laughed at the memory, and at the prospect of a new summer with his friends.


	2. Jack's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added blink and mush because i felt bad that i abandoned my boys
> 
> ALSO IMPORTANT NOTE: Updates will be happening every Wednesday until I'm finished with the other fics I need to be working on. I might honestly abandon a schedule because I'm impatient but whatever.

“O-kay, campers!” Miss Hannah stood next to Mr. Wiesel at the front of a huge room. “Welcome back to Camp Mile-Away!” The kids in the room clapped and cheered. “Now, I know what you’re thinkin’. Shouldn’t Mr. Pulitzer, who is usually in charge, be welcoming us?” She nodded, letting them think that they were all correct. “But I’ve been, uh, promoted, shall we call it, so now I get to introduce all of this to you.” Hannah smiled. “So you’ll get to be seeing a lot more of me! Now, before we start with games and teams and meals, here’s Mr. Wiesel, to tell you the rules.”

Jack’s mouth pursed involuntarily, as if he’d eaten something sour. He’d never forget how Wiesel had kept him in the kitchen, making him redo dishes until long after the sun had set. Each time he saw Weasel’s face it was like the night in eigth grade. Not for the first time in his life, Jack had snuck out of his cabin with a boy: William. William had never been to sleepaway camp before, and he’d taken instantly to Jack. They’d both been punished for sneaking out with more than enough chores to keep them occupied at free time for two days. Stupidly, they’d done it again. Wiesel had called both of their mothers that time. Medda was a little angry, but Jack got off with a warning from his mom, who told him that ‘being a kid is acceptable, being a bad kid is not’. William’s mom, on the other hand, drove up on that same night to take William home. Wiesel glared at Jack every time he saw him after that, and Jack always glared back, his mind red hot with the memory of his tainted first kiss. 

“Alright, alright,” Wiesel said, his voice burnt out, like the only thing he’d done over the past year was smoke cigarettes. “I know most of you’ve been here before, but that don’t matter much, since you still don’ seem to know any of the rules. They’re pretty simple, if you’ve got common sense. Mos’ of you will find this pretty difficult.”

Hannah coughed loudly from where she was sitting, sending a glare in Wiesel’s direction. 

“Right. Okay. There’s no rough-housin’ or doin’ anything that’ll hurt another person,” Wiesel said, “except for in games. And even then, if you hurt someone too bad or on purpose, you’re gonna haveta face some kinda consequence. This includes bein’ respectful to other campers, as well as to your superiors.” Wiesel looked at Jack as he said that. “Second, you haveta be on time, all the time. If you are late, it’s gonna hurt your team points. If you are consistently late, we’re gonna have some issues. Number three, you may not use your cellular or electronic devices outside of your cabins or outside of free times. Fourth, you’re not allowed in a cabin that isn’t yours. Some of you noticed that we’ve now got a gender neutral cabin,” he shook his head, as though he thought it was a bad thing. “That is only for our campers who wish not to be in a normal cabin. That don’t mean that boys and girls are allowed to rent out that cabin and do somethin’ that’s gonna put a baby at this camp.”

A look passed around the room. Even with the gender neutral cabin in place, Wiesel didn’t seem to understand that the amount of straight campers at this camp was two: Oscar and Morris. And even that was debatable, depending on who you asked. 

“Rule, uh, five,” he continued. “Lights out is when it is. Your schedule is absolute. No bein’ out of cabins after lights out.” Again, he looked at Jack. Jack smiled arrogantly at him, until he looked away. “There are a lot of other rules, ones that must be followed. Thankfully for you, they are so obvious that I’m not gonna mention them. You’re our high school camp, and we expect that you can behave in a way different from our elementary camp. Now, there aren’t counselors in your cabins. So you might be thinkin’, ‘I can get away with anythin’, but that’s not right. If you mess up and break a rule, your punishment will be harsher, because the mistake will be your fault. You’ll be dealin’ directly with myself and Mr. Pulitzer.”

With that, Wiesel stepped down to take his seat. Hannah stood up, stepping back to the front of the room. 

“Okay, yes thank you, Mr. Wiesel. He’s right in that if you break the rules, there will be consequences. But please don’t hesitate to talk to one of us if there’s an issue with something, because we really do want to make sure you all have fun here, and we want everything to go smoothly,” she said, a cheesy smile plastered on her face. “Now, let’s get to the fun stuff, right? Teams!”

Jack was the first to start clapping. He’d always loved the teams, loved the way the whole camp spiraled into friendly competition. Well, except for that one year, the summer after seventh grade, when people had begun protesting the teams because the girls were all on red and the boys were all on blue. Katherine, of course, had started the spark on that one, the one that led to the counselors and staff desperately trying to get a bunch of middle schoolers to play some cheesy game. Pulitzer hadn’t been very happy to find out that it was her fault, but Jack had instantly become infatuated in that way that thirteen year olds are prone to doing. The staff had learned from their mistakes, however, and had never tried anything like that again. 

“Alright, you all got your teams at sign in, but I’ll read them out to you again! When you hear your name called for the red team, go to this side of the room,” Hannah pointed to the left. “If you’re called for the blue team, go to the other side of the room. Okay here we go. On the red team is: Smalls, Spot, Albert, Sniper, Oscar, Romeo, Specs, Henry, Crutchie, and Blink! On the blue team is: Katherine, Morris, Race, Buttons, Sarah, Elmer, Jack, Mush, Jojo, and Davey!”

There was a huge scramble as campers rushed to the sides of the room without hesitation. Chairs tipped under the weight of campers - Race and Buttons specifically - who tried their hardest to make it to the opposite side of the room in record time. Hannah covered her eyes with her hands and screamed a little bit. 

“Oh my goodness, okay, is anyone hurt? No? We’re all okay, right?” Hannah raised her face to the ceiling. “You’re all going to kill me before camp is over. Alright, but if we’re all okay, then it’s almost time for our first activity!”

Jack cheered again, setting off a wave of clapping. 

“But first! Seeing as how we have no counselors for your high school year, we’re going to need someone in charge of your teams, so you have five minutes to officially elect a team leader and a team mascot! Ready, go!”

Jack clapped his hands and looked around at his team. He was very happy to that see Kath, Race, Buttons, and Davey were on his team. That was a group of winners if he’d ever seen one. Plus Elmer, Sarah, Mush, and Jojo? Yeah, they had this in the bag. Morris he was a little worried about, but as long as Morris kept his mouth shut, they’d have no problems. 

“Alright!” he said loudly, clapping his hands again to get the attention of everyone else. “Our team leader. Who’s it gonna be?” 

He looked around again, trying to gauge their reactions. 

“Jack,” Davey said, his mouth in a straight line. “I think you just answered that question by asking that question. It’s pretty obvious it should be you.”

Jack stepped backwards. “Thanks, I mean, thank you, but uh, are you sure? I mean, Katherine here would be really good at-”

Katherine looked him in the eye. “Just do it, Jack. Try it, if you don’t like it, someone else’ll take over. But don’t be modest, because you know you’re going to be good at it.”

“Okay,” he said, dumbfounded. It took him a second to regain his composure. “And, uh, our mascot?”

“A lion?” Elmer suggested. 

“That’s really predictable though,” Jojo shrugged. “It’s not bad, just, you know, normal.”

“Yeah, you’re right. What about a wolf?” Buttons asked. 

“That’s normal too though,” Race shook his head. “What about a dragon?”

“I like a dragon,” Sarah nodded, laughing and looking at Katherine. 

“Dragon’s good,” Jack agreed. “All in favor of our mascot being a dragon?”

A few people - Race, Sarah, Mush, Elmer, and Jojo - shot their hands up in the air. Buttons’s hand followed, then Katherine’s, then Davey’s. Jack laughed at Davey’s fake pout, and ceremoniously counted the hands. “Alright, that’s nine people in favor out of ten, and we are officially the dragons!” 

Hannah’s voice rang out through the room. “Are we all good to go?”

“Yes!” called a chorus of kids. 

“Okay, everyone sit down where you are,” Hannah smiled, walking to the front. “Would the team captains please stand up?”

Jack stood up, and turned to where the red team was. The other person standing up was his own sister: Smalls. 

“Oh!” Hannah laughed. “Some sibling rivalry, alright, this’ll be fun. Jack, what’s the blue team’s mascot?”

“The dragons.”

“I like it, I like it. And the red team?”

Smalls coughed. “Pigeons.”

Jack couldn’t keep himself from laughing out loud. 

“What?” Smalls said, overly confident. “Pigeons are cool!” 

“Okay, okay, this is going to be good you guys!” Hannah yelled. “Our first big game is going to start soon, so everyone go put on some clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and come back here in, oh, seven minutes, okay?”

Jack grinned at his team and took off running in the direction of his cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god bless my little sister for responding to my text that said: "what's another animal that's slightly less cool than a dragon and also real" with "pigeons"


	3. Romeo's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i changed my mind updates are going to come on Saturdays or Sundays, as well as Wednesdays.

Romeo made sure to change as fast as possible. Now that he had Smalls as a team leader, he wouldn’t be able to get away with just anything. Last year, Specs was the leader of Romeo’s team, and they had let him be late all the time. That had ended up costing them the win, and Smalls had been pissed about it. Romeo never wanted to see her that angry again, screaming and yelling and face red. So he hustled to change his shoes, not bothering to deal with his pants or shirt, and was back in the main hall as fast as he could get there. Apparently, his fastest was almost too fast. As he pushed open the doors, he realized that only three people were in there: Hannah, Wiesel, and Smalls. 

“You made good time, Ro,” Smalls nodded approvingly. “Not gonna be late this year?”

“I’ll make you no promises,” Romeo admitted. “But I’m gonna try.”

“Good,: she sat down in a tiny plastic chair. “We’re gonna need every point we can get.”

As people trickled in, Romeo looked at his team. Smalls might be right about saying that points were going to count. No, their team wasn’t that bad, but they certainly weren’t as - athletically inclined - as some of the people on the blue team. Sure, Spot was on the football team, and he did rock climbing, but so did Jack. Spot, Smalls, and Specs were easily the fastest on the red team, and they didn’t stand a chance against Jack, Race, Buttons, Jojo, or Sarah. Not to mention that Crutchie hadn’t participated in any kind of gym in, well, ever. The games this year were going to be difficult, for sure. And when it came to intellectual and mental abilities, he loved his team, but only Katherine could top Davey’s general knowledge, and she was on his team. Together, they would win any kind of trivia contest or puzzle. And inevitably, one of those was going to show up sometime in the next two weeks.   
No, Romeo decided, they couldn’t afford to lose any points for lateness. Blink didn’t seem to understand that, though. Luckily for the red team, neither did Mush. 

“Okay,” Hannah chirped. “So because Blink and Mush decided they’d rather suck face than show up on time, both teams are now at negative five points. Good job, boys!” 

The two of them blushed, causing the entire room to laugh at them. Well, the entire room except for Smalls, who didn’t find it funny. 

“Alright, alright,” Hannah calmed them down. “It’s time, finally, for our first game!”

Romeo joined in the clapping. Enthusiasm was worth points. 

“It’s a new game this year, never before played at Camp Mile-Away.”

Every person leaned forward. Most of them had been going there since second grade, and only a few games had ever been introduced during that time, so Hannah had their full attention. She smiled at their faces. 

“It’s called ‘plungerball’ and the winning team will earn twenty points!

Romeo nodded in excitement as the screen at the front of the hall flashed a picture of the field. 

“At each end of our beloved field,” Hannah explained, “there is a pole. At the top of each of these poles, there is a plunger, like the kind you stick in a toilet. The game is pretty simple, really. Put the ball in the plunger of the opposite team. Keep the ball out of your plunger.”

Her audience nodded in understanding. 

“After a point is scored, a round starts. At the beginning of each round, I’m going to throw the ball up in the air and the team captains will try to hit it to a team member. It’s passed with hands until it hits the ground, and then you can play it like a soccer ball, dribbling it yourself or passing to a teammate. If you’re holding it in your hands, though, you can’t move. Each goal scored is two points for your team, plus ten at the end for winning. We’re playin’ to ten goals, so the winning team earns thirty points, while the loser wins less than ten. Is it fair?” she asked them. “No, but it’s how it goes. Don’t forget that if you hurt someone, it’s a fifteen point deduction from your team! Are we ready?”

Everyone cheered, and Hannah led them outside. 

Once they were on the field, Hannah clapped to get people’s attention again. “Okay!” she announced. “That’s the red team’s plunger over there. Hey! Jojo, Buttons, listen to me. Next time, it’ll be points off.”

The two of them shut their mouths. 

“And blue team’s plunger is over there. You have a few minutes to figure out offense and defense.”

Smalls pulled her team into a huddle. “Okay. Specs, Romeo, Blink, Albert, Sniper, and me are gonna be on offense. Spot, Henry, Crutchie, Oscar, are you all good with being on defense?”

The four of them nodded. Romeo wondered if that was actually what they wanted or if they were trying not to anger Smalls. 

“We’ll call a timeout at like, three or five points and fix issues with position, okay?”

The team agreed with Smalls. Of course they did. 

“Okay teams!” Hannah shouted. “Take positions! Team leaders, start the ball!” 

Jack and Smalls stared each other down, as siblings are prone to doing. Hannah threw the ball up in the air and smalls hit it to Blink, who caught it and planted his feet. He threw it up the field to Sniper, who passed to Romeo. Romeo passed to Specs, but Sarah intercepted it. She threw the ball to Elmer, but Elmer dropped it. Smalls jumped in, kicking it to Albert. He kicked it, dribbling it skillfully up the field. He kicked it up, and Romeo caught it. Romeo passed to Specs, who threw it up to the plunger and-

The whole red team cheered when the ball landed in. Hannah called Jack and Smalls back to the center, and tossed the ball up. This time, Jack hit it. Kath was pretty far down the field, but she caught the serve and passed to Race. Sniper almost caught the ball when Race threw to Jojo, but all she did was get it to land at Elmer’s feet. He kicked it up to Jack, who was able to score despite Crutchie’s best efforts to knock the ball away. The blue team cheered this time. 

The game went on a long time like that. The red team scored, then the blue. Then the red, then the blue. Then red, then blue. And again, and again. Soon, the score was 5-5. Smalls huddled her team again. 

“Spot, switch positions with, uh, Sniper. Henry,” she pointed, “you go in for Romeo.”

Begrudgingly, Romeo became defense. He didn’t argue, but he didn’t understand it. He and Specs had been the perfect team, passing it to each other before scoring twice. Sniper had been doing really well too. If their formula was working, he didn’t see why it should be changed. 

Romeo thought he had been proven wrong when Spot scored a goal. But then, when Romeo and Sniper failed their team with their poor defensive skills and allowed Jack, then Sarah, then Race, then Race again, then Morris to score points, he knew he was right. He just wished that being right hadn’t meant that they’d lost. And he really wished it hadn’t meant that Morris scored the winning goal, causing the blue team to clap him on the back. Buttons was so happy that they went as far as to give Morris a half-hug. Disgusting. 

“Alright, alright, good game you guys!” Hannah said. “Our red team scored six times, so that’s twelve more points. Plus one for outstanding enthusiasm, added to negative five is eight points! Blue team scored ten times, so that’s twenty points, plus ten for winning. Added to negative five is twenty-five points.”

Smalls was obviously trying not to look upset when she shook Jack’s hand. Being a poor sport would lose them even more points. 

“Okay, guys, go get lunch!” Hannah yelled. 

Romeo felt Specs take his hand as they trudged up to the dining hall. He smiled at them, not saying a word. Both of them were too tired and winded from the game to say anything anyway.   
But Specs pulled Romeo close after they finished eating lunch. The dining hall was practically empty, save for Spot, Race, Elmer, and Albert at a table across the room, laughing at some joke. Romeo could see Jack, Davey, and Crutchie sitting on the bench outside. They had two hours of free time, so no one was in a rush now. 

“Eight points is pretty far behind,” Romeo sighed. 

“Ro, love, since when do you care?” Specs asked. “Not to be mean, but when you lost it for us last year, I believe your exact words were ‘meh.’”

Romeo laughed and pressed his head to Specs’s chest. “Yeah, I remember that. But, I mean, Smalls helped me a lot with school this year when it got hard for me. And I know this means a lot to her. So I wanna do what I can to win.”

“That’s sweet of you,” they kissed their boyfriend’s head. “Don’t put it all on yourself to win, though, okay? You’re here to have fun.”

“Yeah, okay.” Romeo kissed Specs’s cheek and stood up. 

“I’m serious,” they said. Romeo smiled. He remembered them saying those same words a few years ago, after the exact kind of dramatic love confession Romeo had wanted for years. 

“I know you are. Thank you for it. Should we go do free time now?”

“Yeah, sure,” Specs put their plate on the tray of dirty dishes, and the two of them stepped out, hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love romeo so much


	4. Katherine's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I haven't updated anything since Saturday. If updates and fics start slowing down, or if I miss one or two on Get Lost, you'll have to be patient with me. I added another AP class this semester and it's already kicking my butt. But, on the bright side, I think I started to get a concrete plan for this fic! yaaay.   
> (I'm not super proud of this chapter but everyone has chapters like that, right?)

Katherine’s idea of a perfect free time was very simple. If she didn’t want to deal with other people showering later that night, she would use her time to shower while there was still plenty of hot water. If she hadn’t slept well or she had played hard, she would take a nap. If she had energy, and was okay with dealing with people, she’d go play four-square or Dance Dance Revolution or Mario Kart in the game room. 

On days like these, however, with camp well on its way into the week and her brain beginning to feel the effects of sleep deprivation, she found herself needing alone time. So she’d buy a soda and a chocolate bar from the camp store and go sit in the sunshine with a book. She was always reminded of her mom when she did it; it felt the same way that being with her mother had always felt: happy and peaceful. It was the way she felt when Sarah was with her. Often, the two girls would read together, with separate books and one large cherry flavored slurpee on the bench between them. 

Katherine wished they were able to do that today, but just as free time had been starting, clouds had rolled in and it had begun to rain. So the four girls were going to be stuffed, rather rudely, into their cabin. It wasn’t as awful as it could have been, actually. Katherine certainly didn’t envy the boys, who were cramped with seven people to a cabin. And she remembered in elementary and middle school camp, when there had been up to twelve people in one cabin. But she hadn’t even been able to get a soda yet.   
She watched as Sniper and Smalls, who had been planning on going swimming that day at free time, wrapped their towels around their heads for some kind of shelter and dryness, and ran as quickly as they could back to the cabin. They slammed the door open, breathing heavily but unable to stop laughing. 

Katherine just wanted an hour or two to read, eat candy, and not have to deal with the other loud campers. As she grumbled about this, Sarah climbed up on the bed where Katherine sat. Katherine rested her head on Sarah’s shoulder. 

“Kath, I’m sure someone in here has food, at least. And you can still read in here,” Sarah traced her fingers up and down her girlfriend’s arm. 

“Yeah, I know,” Katherine smiled at the feeling. “Sniper, do you have any candy?”

Sniper laughed. “Do I? Katherine, you underestimate me.” She finished drying her wet hair, soaked from the rain despite her best efforts, and pulled her bag out from underneath her bed. Sniper pushed it to the side and triumphantly held up a brown cardboard box. “Girls,” she said proudly, “we’ve got enough to last us at least a week, and my brother’s gonna send me another box soon. What can I interest you in?”

“Got some chocolate?” Katherine sat up and peered down at Sniper from her perch on the top bunk. Hershey’s kisses hit her face and neck, and she laughed. “Thank god,” she whispered. “Thanks, Sniper!” she unwrapped one, finally content. 

Sarah rolled her eyes, but yelled at Sniper too. “Skittles?” she asked, and was able to catch the flying red packet that flew at her face. 

Katherine, her mouth stuffed full of chocolate, watched as Smalls wordlessly leaned over the top bunk. Sniper looked up at her, grinned, and tossed up a tiny pink and purple box. 

“Yes!” Smalls cheered. “I love these!”

“I know. That’s why I brought them.”

Katherine absolutely didn’t see Smalls blush. Smalls, the fearless, badass, take-no-shit red team leader? Of course not. 

“What are they?” Katherine asked. 

“Nerds,” Sniper answered, shoving her stuff back under her bed. “Her favorite.”

“Oh, Smalls, I didn’t ask you yet,” Sarah looked over. “What’s up with the pigeon mascot?”

Smalls gasped, offended. Katherine couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. 

“Pigeons are cool!” she insisted loudly, slamming her hand down on the bed. As she did so, she sent Nerds candies flying everywhere. They landed, some on the floor, but most on her sheets. She looked around, her face stoic, and just shook her head. “Okay, you really wanna know?” She turned back to Sarah. “I lost a bet.”

“Oh my gosh, what?” Katherine gaped, crumpling up the silver wrappers. 

“Yeah. It was stupid, but on the drive up, Jack and Spot bet me that I couldn’t get Medda to do that ‘what’s updog?’ joke. If I lost, I had to say that pigeons were my favorite animal.” Smalls swallowed and sighed heavily. “They know I’m fuckin’ scared of pigeons.”

“See, I knew there was something wrong with that whole ‘pigeons are cool’ thing!” Sniper laughed. “That’s like, the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Medda’s smarter than I gave her credit for.”  
-  
Over time, Katherine and Sarah went back to their books, leaning on each other as they read. Smalls moved to Sniper’s bed to finish the movie that they’d started yesterday. After almost an hour of listening to only the rain, the first thing Katherine heard was Smalls’s voice as she hopped back up on her bunk. 

“There are so many Nerds in my bed!” she yelled. 

Sniper was the first to start laughing. Katherine and Sarah sat up and looked at each other. When Katherine saw the way that her girlfriend was trying not to laugh, and that tears were coming out of her eyes, she couldn’t help but giggle. And from there, no one could stop laughing, not even when their stomachs and cheeks hurt. 

Sniper regained her breath long enough to choke out: “Well, save some room for me.”

That time, Katherine absolutely saw Smalls blush. 

The laughter died out eventually, as did the rain. But at dinner that night, Smalls leaned across the table. 

“Kath, Sarah, Snipes,” she whispered, and pointed to her taller brother, who was sitting at the table behind her with his boyfriends. “There are so many nerds in Jack’s bed.”

And if people wondered about why the girls cabin was laughing so hard and so loudly, they should have minded their own business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed my tumblr! I'm now @allbesolucky, and my fanfic account is still @javidblue, if you want to come say hi over there!


	5. Crutchie's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, it has been a few days since chapter four now. just so you aren't confused about points. (I mean we're all gay, so you're not going to check my math, if we're being honest.)
> 
> Also I like this chapter a lot better than the last one!!!

The only light was coming from the lit lampposts, and even those were only lit every other one. Apparently, even the moon was participating in their night game, and was playing on the side against the campers. Thanks to all the cloud coverage, the ground was still wet and squishy, which slowed Crutchie down a little bit. Jack and Davey never went far ahead of him, which he appreciated, but he tried to pick up the pace. He knew that if it came down to it, Jack would leave Crutchie in the dust so that he didn’t lose points for his precious blue team. 

Inside the main hall, everything was warm and bright, which was a monumental contrast to outside. People mulled around, chatting. The lights were almost blinding, illuminating each corner of the room. Hannah had turned on some music, and Crutchie watched Romeo drag a slightly annoyed Specs to stand and dance. 

“Okay, I think that’s everyone!” Hannah announced, as she walked to the front of the room. “Don’t worry, Jack, David, Crutchie, you aren’t late. Just later than everyone else.”

Crutchie grinned awkwardly as he took his seat. 

“But that means that we can start tonight’s game!” Hannah yelled, and everyone cheered, including Crutchie. He noticed that Smalls looked dead on her feet, but she was keeping morale up as best as she could, and was cheering almost as loudly as Romeo was.

“So! It’s time for a camp classic,” Hannah paused for dramatic effect. “Invasion!”

At least four people yelled about how much they loved invasion, from both teams. Everyone loved invasion; if you didn’t, you had probably never played it.

“Let’s go over the rules, just to be extra sure that no one breaks any,” Hannah said, and the music turned down. “Around camp, there are four stations. Each of these stations will be manned by either me, Mr. Wiesel, or one of your team leaders.” She gestured at Smalls and Jack, both of whom raised their hands. “Since we’re a little short of counselors this year, and since Mr. Pulitzer has, uh, turned down our offer to play, that’s what we’re doing. Anyway, you all know how this goes. The people manning each station have flashlights. If the flashlight lands on you, you’re frozen. If they see you move while the flashlight is on you, you have to go to another station. If you can get up to the station, however, they give you a mark on your hand that counts as one point towards a team.”

Crutchie remembered all of this well, of course. He’d only played it every summer he’d been going here. Everyone else knew it too, and many people were tuning out. 

“The people at the stations are also allowed to make you do anything they want in order to give you a point. If you reach them, that does not mean you are entitled to a point,” Hannah reminded. “They can make you sing, dance, do a special skill, anything. If you don’t want to do that, then you’re more than welcome to refuse the point. The one thing they cannot do, however,” she looked pointedly at Jack, then at Smalls, “is deny you a point based on your team, send people of a different team away, or give a challenge that’s exceedingly difficult to accomplish so that someone on the other team can’t score. Make sense?”

The group of campers in front of Hannah cheered, and she smiled. “Okay, we’re going to start in just a few minutes. I’m going to put a timer for three minutes on the speaker, and when it’s done, uh, Davey?”

He looked up. 

“Can you turn the timer off?”

Davey nodded and gave her a thumbs up. 

“Great! So when the timer goes off, you all are officially allowed to go out and start the game. But give us three minutes to go get to our stations.”   
With that, Hannah, Wiesel, Jack, and Smalls took off out the back door of the main hall, leaving eighteen high school campers alone. Surprisingly to Crutchie, they all waited there patiently, talking to each other until the timer went off. As soon as that blared, however, people rushed out the door, stampeding down the stairs of the entrance to the main hall. Crutchie let them go. He knew what he was doing. 

-

The stations were in their normal places. Hannah had the one on the field, Wiesel was over at the archery range, Smalls was stationed at the camp store, and Jack was up by the rock wall. So Crutchie knew exactly how to play it to get the most out of the points. He took a deep breath and began the hike up to the rock wall. Jack was his best bet for getting points, of course. 

He could hear Jack from a long ways away. “Hey!” Jack would yell. “Who’s that? Oh, that’s Spot. Yeah, I dunno if I want you over here. Maybe go get some points from Smalls?”

And then he would pause, presumably as someone else said something. 

“I know that’s not allowed! Who said that?” A light swung around, breaking through the trees. “Romeo. I know, Ro. Shut up.”

For a few seconds, everything was quiet. Jack clicked off his flashlight, and Crutchie took a few steps forward so that he was in range of the light. When Jack turned it on again, Buttons was right behind him. 

“Alright, Buttons, good job. Go get some more points for the blue team, yeah?” Jack said, keeping his light on Buttons’s hand so he could see the mark he made. 

That allowed for other people to keep moving forward, until suddenly Buttons ran away and Jack swung around. “Mush!” he yelled. “Come on, man! You’ve gotta be better than that. Go get some points somewhere else.” 

Mush had been directly in front of Crutchie, and as soon as he moved, Crutchie was blinded by the bright yellow. 

“Hi Crutch!” Jack called. “Don’t move, okay?”

Crutchie didn’t. The light stayed on him for much too long. 

“Alright, fine. Reverse psychology’s not gonna work then, huh?” Jack muttered, and his flashlight landed on Oscar Delancey, who fell on his ass under the pressure. Crutchie stifled a laugh. He was, after all, on Crutchie’s team, and - like it or not - Crutchie was supposed to be rooting for him. Jack didn’t have the dignity to even try not to laugh. He roared and sent Oscar away. Crutchie used those few seconds to step forward. 

The flashlight landed on him again, and he stayed still. When it swiveled away, Crutchie could breathe again. He stepped forward: one, two, three steps. Jack was so close. Another step, then another. He didn’t move for at least two minutes. And then-

“Okay, Crutchie, you’ve been still for a long time. Come get a point, you deserve it,” Jack called out to the thin air. Crutchie stepped forward, and walked right up to Jack like he owned the dirt between the two of them. “Oh, but first, would you give me a kiss to earn this point?”

Crutchie laughed. If he wanted to say no, he could have. Jack wouldn’t have taken the point away. “Yeah, you loser,” Crutchie said, and kissed Jack’s cheek. 

Jack took Crutchie’s hand and quickly marked on the back of it. The first point of many, as he would prove when he scored a point from Smalls, who maybe was just a little bit too nice to him and let him get off easy. And then again, when he scored a point from Wiesel, who nearly caught him for slipping, but was distracted by Jojo, who broke a stick on the ground. And then yet a fourth point from Hannah, who asked him to sing Taylor Swift. He did so happily. 

He got another point from Jack easily, since he only really had to say ‘I love you’ once and Jack let him come all the way up. Hannah hadn’t said anything about giving your boyfriends preferential treatment. 

Crutchie must have gotten over-confident when he went back to Smalls’s station. He practically sauntered up to her, and she got him out easily. As soon as he turned his back, he heard her let Sniper come all the way up, when she had clearly been behind Crutchie, but he decided not to mention that. He went back to Wiesel, then back to Hannah, then back to Jack.

When the bell rang, signifying the end of the game, Crutchie looked down at his hand. Eight points. That wasn’t bad, not bad at all. He made his way back to the main hall as fast as he could, and only now that the adrenaline had faded from his mind and heart did he notice how tired his body and mind were. Once again, he was stunned by the brightness and cheer of the main hall. People were already there, of course, all equally as tired as he was. 

“Okay!” Hannah shouted. Why she thought it would be a good idea to have a cup of coffee in hand at ten o’clock, Crutchie didn’t question. “Go talk to your team leaders and tell them your score!” 

Crutchie put himself at the back of the line. When he told Smalls that he had scored eight points, her jaw physically dropped. 

“Lemme see your hand,” she whispered. “Oh my god. That’s the highest score on the team, by like three points. Damn, Crutchie.”

He shrugged. Yeah, he was good. That much should have been public knowledge. 

Smalls and Jack totaled the scores and reported them to Hannah. 

“Alright! Scores are in! The blue team scored thirty-four points, and Katherine scored the most, with a total of six points! The red team won, however, and scored thirty-eight points, eight of which were scored by Crutchie!” Hannah clapped, and the red team whooped and hollered. Spot clapped Crutchie on the back approvingly. “That means they also get an extra five points for winning, so we get forty-three points to the red team! So now, our scores for each team are, um, thirty-four plus fifty-one for the blue team and forty-six plus forty-three for red. What is that?”

“Eighty-five for blue and,” Buttons shouted, “eighty-nine for red.”

“Thank you, Buttons! Blue eighty-five, red eighty-nine.”

Crutchie grinned, happy to have won a game and put his team over the top. Even if it was only by four points, now they were in the lead. 

“Okay, go get ready for bed, campers! Big day tomorrow too!” Hannah sent them off. 

Crutchie caught up with his boyfriends as they walked out, and the three of them made their way to their cabin. 

“That’s only four points,” Davey said to Jack. “We can catch up with them, no biggy.”

“Mmm, I don’t know about that,” Crutchie smiled. “I mean, they’ve got a beast like me on their team, so I think we have a good chance.”

Jack shoved his boyfriend gently. “You’re pretty good, but don’t go gettin’ a big head, alright? We’ve still got some good players on our team.”

“I do think the only way our team would be better was if Crutchie were on it, though,” Davey argued, and Crutchie was glad to see Jack agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Come follow me on tumblr and help me get to my 500 follower goal @allbesolucky!


	6. Button's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dfsajlreg i keep liking the chapters where they're earning points and not being so confident about the ones that are just fluff but i need to write both kinds of chapters its fine
> 
> nb buttons is the best thing ever

They heard shouting coming from the game room, which was an obvious indicator that they should either investigate, or stay very, very far away. So, obviously, Buttons had to see what all the hoopla was about. It could only be expected, after all.

What they came upon, as they stepped down the final stairs to the basement where the game room was, was a giant circle of people. Race, Jack, Sarah, Spot, Katherine, Smalls, David, Specs, Romeo, Crutchie, Albert, and Elmer sat on their asses, cards in their hands. Race was yelling that of course he hadn’t cheated, he always told the truth. 

“No, no, I don’t think so!” Jack yelled. “That’s a load of bs, Race!”

“Are you willing to call that, Jack, really?” Race countered, straightening his back. “You’ve got so many cards in your hand that if you’re wrong, you’re so screwed.”

Jack faltered. He was holding a lot of cards. 

“He might not wanna call it, but I will,” David spoke up. In his hands there were only two cards. “I think it’s bullshit. You don’t have three two’s. There’s no way.”

Race glanced up at Buttons, and grinned deviously. “Sorry, Dave,” he picked up the cards, flipping them over one by one. One two, then another, and a third.

Davey practically fell on the floor, his head resting on the fluffy rug. He didn’t make a sound, only let his chest rise and fall slowly. Buttons had to admire his composure. 

He sat back up and added the deck of cards, a thick stack, to his hand. Race looked cocky, like he’d known it would happen that way. Knowing Race, he probably actually had known that. Or at least had a lucky guess.

Footsteps sounded down the wood stairs, and Buttons turned around. Jojo hopped off the last stair and handed Buttons a rootbeer. “Are y'all really still playing? God, I was over here like, an hour ago.”

“Has it been that long?” Katherine asked, and Specs glanced at their watch.

“Apparently so, yeah.”

“Alright,” Buttons nodded. “I want in on the next round.”

“I’ll play too,” Jojo raised his hand, careful not to spill the soda he was sipping. 

-

Spot dealt the two of them in, and the group commenced the game. They were a little ways in (up to nine) when Blink and Mush walked down the stairs. 

“We were beginning to wonder why no one was out there,” Mush laughed. “It’s only like, the Delanceys. Deal us in during the next round, okay?”

After Davey won another round, Mush and Blink were dealt in. Games stretched longer as more people were added, but with the constant stream of sugar they were eating, it didn’t matter to Buttons. They would have been alright if the game had kept going for a long time. But apparently, those people who had been playing for hours already didn’t quite feel the same way.

Crutchie dropped first, throwing his cards in when the round finished. Without missing a beat, both of his boyfriends followed his example. The three of them waved at the group as they left. Race whistled at them teasingly, earning a middle finger from each one of them separately. 

Somewhat hypocritically, Race left with Albert after the end of the next round. Spot and Elmer paused, looked at each other, and simultaneously set down their cards. 

“I need some air,” Katherine said, watching them leave. “And I need to stretch. Sarah?”

Her girlfriend diligently followed, and Katherine beamed at her. 

Jojo and Buttons got out of there eventually as well. Once they stepped outside, the sun and wind blasted their face, blinding them and making them realize exactly how stuffy it had been in the basement. That was the issue, they assumed, with re-doing the whole camp and putting one of the busier rooms in the bottom of a building with no air conditioning. The two of them walked around the camp, up the sun-bathed hills and past the glittering swimming pool. 

They heard giggles from inside the gates of the pool, and peered through the fence to catch a glimpse of Jack, Crutchie, and Davey inside. Jack was carrying Crutchie bridal style, threatening to dunk him under the water. When he finally did it, Crutchie came up with his hair pushed back from his face, screaming and laughing and already going to do his best to push Jack underneath. He climbed up on Jack’s shoulders while David cheered and clapped along from where he sat on the edge of the pool, only dipping his feet into the water. Buttons nudged their boyfriend, tipping their head to tell him to look. He stopped, just long enough to smile at his friends. 

“Do you think we should join them? Could be fun,” Jojo suggested. “I haven’t gone swimming in a while.”

Buttons shook their head. “No, I just went yesterday, so I’d rather not. Plus,” they grinned, like they were sharing a secret, “I’m not so sure they want more people in there. I think that’s a private thing, y’know?”

Jojo smiled back, conspiratorially, so that his eyes shined in the sun. “Should we go do some kind of private thing, do you think?”

Buttons pushed him, but laughed. “How long do we have until free time’s over?”

“Hour and a half,” Jojo checked his phone, illegally taken out of his cabin. 

A voice called up the hill. “Are you forgetting someone?”

“Couldn’t you have been a little bit more patient in your eavesdropping, Hen?” Jojo yelled down at Henry, who was trekking up, covering his eyes so that he wasn’t looking directly into the sunlight. “I was just about to mention you!”

“Just didn’t wanna be forgotten,” Henry smiled as he reached the two of them, throwing his arm around Buttons. 

“Impossible, babe. You know that,” Buttons rested their head on Henry’s shoulder for a second. 

“Yeah, I know. I bug you guys so much that I don’t think you could get rid of me if you tried.”

“Just how we like it,” Jojo smiled and took Henry’s hand. “Come on, let’s go up to the top of the hill. Might be a good place for some alone time.”

“Alone time, with all three of us, right?” Buttons bumped him. 

“Of course.”

The sun, over time, sank behind the cabins, casting an orange shadow on the clouds and bathing the whole camp in light. For the next hour, the three of them heard screams and shouts coming from the camp; someone had started a new game, or more people had gotten in the pool. It had to end at some point, but they felt like that little bit of the end of the afternoon lasted forever, and they could have handled staying up there even long after the dinner bell rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	7. Smalls's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!! I love these girls  
>  also this chapter is 2658 words thats a lot for me to crank out in two days

Smalls hated some of the games they had to play. Sure, most of them were lots of fun. She’d even go so far as to say that they were sometimes the highlights of her summer. This game was not one of those. 

“Alright,” Hannah told the group of kids, all sitting on the floor of the main hall in the chapel. “It’s time to make our team banners and song.”

Smalls rolled her eyes. Mush, Jack, Romeo, and Jojo, however, grinned widely. 

“You guys have been on your teams for almost a week now, and you know each other pretty well,” Hannah continued. “And you have your colors, your mascots, and your inside jokes. That should be enough to at least give you a starting point for your songs and flags.” She smiled, obviously remembering one of the songs from a few years ago. It had been Elmer and Sarah who had made it up, mostly, who had formed an entire song around an inside joke. Smalls couldn’t remember exactly what the joke had been, but she vaguely remembered the song revolving around panda-mermaids. 

“You have one hour! Go get to work!” she yelled, and the group of kids broke into their two groups. 

“Alright, team,” Smalls said. “This one’s not my strongest game, and it’s really hard. So we’ve got to leave this one up to our experts. Romeo, I believe this is your deal, yeah?”

“Yes it is!” Romeo stepped forward, next to Smalls. “So let’s get to work. I’ve had a few ideas for this year’s song already, in my little notebook of inside jokes.”

He caught the way that Albert was looking at him strangely. 

“What?” he asked pointedly. “I don’t like forgetting things that are fun. I like rememberin’ all my summers here.”

“O-kay,” Albert shrugged, laughing and nudging Spot, who raised his eyebrows. 

Romeo coughed, trying to regain attention. “Like I was saying,” he raised his eyebrows. Specs elbowed Albert and Spot, trying to get them to listen to their boyfriend. “Thanks, babe,” Romeo smiled, and Specs sent him a loving smile. “I’ve had some ideas that we can work with, and we can just put it to a pretty basic melody. Sound good?”

Everyone nodded. You didn’t get in between Romeo and his goal when he was able to do something he was passionate about. If it was sports, he’d be glad to have a distraction. But as soon as it was creative - something to do with music or art - you’d have to have a death wish to prevent that. 

“But first-” he grinned. “The flag. I’m thinking something like this,” he held up a piece of paper. On it was a crudely drawn sketch of an outline of a bird, labeled ‘pigeon’. Smalls shuddered. But around it, there were tiny links, all in red spirals. She stepped forward to look at it, and realized. Each link was composed of tiny cursive writing: ‘Smalls, Specs, Spot, Sniper, Henry, Crutchie, Albert, Oscar, Blink, Romeo’. She smiled. Romeo was a sap, but it was a good thing. Smalls would have been tempted to design the flag with how much they needed to win the competition; Romeo decorated it with why they needed to win. She caught Sniper watching her, and looked away quickly when the two of them made eye contact. Smalls wiped the grin off her face. 

-

She tried hard to listen to Romeo’s idea, truly. But it wasn’t nearly as interesting as watching Sniper listen to him and give her input. 

“Can we add a line about how enthusiastic we’ve been?” Sniper took her pencil out of her mouth to talk, the end of it all bitten. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good,” Romeo smiled at her. 

Sniper, Romeo, and Henry were the only ones really working on the song. Smalls, and Blink were all listening to them work. Crutchie and Specs were working on drawing a pigeon, while Albert and Spot goofed off and Oscar worked on - something. After a while, Smalls sat up straight, cracked her back, and went to sit with the two kids who had pencils on paper. 

“Kinda figured you’d stay over there the whole time,” Crutchie laughed at her. “Starin’ at Snipes for an hour seems right up your alley.”

“Fuck off, Crutchie,” she said, but there was no bite in her tone. “I came over to ask Specs if they’d like to join me. I thought that maybe they wanted to come watch their boyfriend in his zone.”

Specs grinned. “What you’re forgetting,” they snarked, “is that unlike you, I can look at Romeo whenever I want. And uh, just about however I want. And he’s got his shirt on right now, so he’s not quite as, uh, interesting.”

Crutchie let out a laugh that sounded more like he choked. 

“Jesus, Specs,” Smalls said, her mouth gaping open. “I didn’t need to hear that today.”

Especially not after she’d just been staring at Sniper for - she checked her watch - almost forty minutes. 

“Sorry,” Specs said, their face only a little red. They moved their pencil over the paper a few more times, writing names: Smalls, Sniper, Specs, Romeo, Crutchie. “We’ll stop rubbing our happy relationships in your face.”

Smalls pursed her lips. “Thanks,” she bit. 

“Smalls, you do realize,” Crutchie said, adding feathers onto the pigeon, which Smalls had been trying to ignore, “that you could absolutely be dating Sniper like, at this very second, right?”

Smalls shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”

Crutchie tsked, and gave Specs a knowing look. “If you say so.”

“Five minutes remaining!” Hannah yelled to the group of kids. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” Smalls took in a deep breath. “Romeo, do we have the song done?”

“Yep!” he called, and Sniper turned around to grin at Smalls. Smalls didn’t look directly at her, knowing that there was too much work to do to get distracted. 

“Let’s learn it, then! We have to sing it, remember?”

They sounded, well, awful. Smalls knew that she couldn’t sing on key. Turns out that neither could Spot. Or Albert, Henry, Specs, and Blink. Oscar might have been a fabulous singer, but they would never know, since he did nothing but sit and stare at them as they tried to learn the words. Crutchie, Sniper, and Romeo, of course, sounded perfect. But it was five to four, and the five horrible voices overpowered the four decent ones. 

“Alright,” Hannah remarked after they finished performing. “We’ll give that one, uh, two points for enthusiasm, how’s that?”

Smalls grumbled as she went to her seat. 

“No, wait!” Hannah stopped her. “Present your banner first!”

“Right,” Smalls breathed, and Specs handed it up to her. “So here,” she held it high, “we have a pigeon, because that’s our mascot and-”  
Smalls looked Spot directly in the eyes, and then looked at Jack. Both of her brothers were cracking up.   
“-and pigeons are cool.” She recovered from her anger at the two of them, and continued. “And here we’ve got all of our names, in little spirals. Because we’re a team, and that’s how teams work.”

“Aw,” Hannah smiled. “Thank you, Smalls. Now for the blue team to go ahead and present?”

It wasn’t fair. Jack had taken a million voice and art lessons over his life. Sarah was in the school’s women’s choir. Katherine and Elmer were poetry geniuses. Race could draw anything he wanted. So the song was perfect, and so was the flag. They sounded like an angel choir, a statement which Smalls wished she could say that she was exaggerating. And the flag was an incredible artwork, a drawing of the camp in all blue. 

Blink, seated next to Smalls, summed it up best when they presented the flag. 

“Fuck,” he whispered. 

“Yeah,” Smalls nodded. “Fuck.”

“So, that’ll be two points to the red team for enthusiasm, plus five points for their adorable symbolism behind the flag, and ten points to the blue team for their flag, and another ten points for the song,” Hannah announced. “Which brings our score to-” she looked at her clipboard, and muttered under her breath. “Blue has one hundred twenty-one points, and red has ninety-five.”

Smalls sighed. Twenty-five points behind. Sure, they could make that up. But there were only a few more days of camp, and if they kept up their trend of only winning points for “enthusiasm”, they might be a little screwed. 

“You’re dismissed for free time!” Hannah told the group of kids, who ran out of the main hall as quickly as possible. Smalls stayed behind a little bit, walking slower than everyone else. 

The air outside was hot and weighted, like a blanket on a summer night. Her breath labored to keep going despite the feeling in her chest. 

“Hey,” she heard, and looked up. Sniper leaned on the railing of the stairs that led up to the main hall, a sympathetic grin on her face. “Come get some soda with me.”  
Smalls smiled back, a little dejectedly. “Alright.”

Sniper’s fingers laced with Smalls’s, and Smalls felt her feet moving and her arm being pulled towards the camp store. 

-

“Come on,” Sniper wheeled, “it’ll help with the mood you’re in.”

“I’m not in a mood,” Smalls mumbled, but she put the packet of peanut butter candies on the counter anyway. She reached for her camp money card, but Sniper hit her hand away. 

“Nope! I’m buying,” Sniper pulled out her own money card, one of the pink ones that was loaded with five dollars on it. 

“Oh, come on, Snipes,” Smalls said, annoyed. “Let me pay.”

“No, you’re in a bad mood, so you’re not paying.”

“I’m not in a bad mood!” Smalls stepped back defensively. “And, uh, if I was, I’d only be in a worse mood if you paid for me. So-”

“Bullshit. I’m paying.”

“Would one of you pay?” came a voice from behind the counter. Morris Delancey. “I’d rather have some time alone, and the two of you are making that difficult.” 

“We love hangin’ out with you too, Morris,” Sniper rolled her eyes and handed him her card. “I’m payin’.”

-

They ended up on the swingset, kicking their legs out gently so that they’d swing. Their sodas and candies were balanced, somewhat precariously, on the stairs that led up to the slide. 

“So.” Sniper said, not looking at Smalls, but instead focusing on the group of people playing a game of soccer on the field. “You’re pissed that our team is so far behind, right?”

“Can we talk about anything else?” Smalls glanced at her friend’s face. “Like, literally anything.”

Sniper put her feet down, stopping her movement. “No. Smalls, you’re beating yourself up over this and it’s too much. Are you even havin’ fun?”

“Right now? No, I’m not. Can we talk about somethin’ else, so that I can have fun?”

“Smalls!” Sniper’s voice cracked. “Listen to me! Can you take this seriously, please?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. What’s up?”

“What’s up is that you’re not having a good summer because you care too much about winning and not enough about being here, in the moment,” Sniper sighed. “You’ve become, like, this robot. You’re so preoccupied with your team that you’re forgetting that it’s okay to chill a little.”

Smalls wanted to talk, but the air got stuck in her throat. 

“And you’re stressed all the time,” Sniper continued. “You weren’t even like this during finals. And I hate seeing you upset, Smalls. It’s just the worst. I want you to be happy, and I want you to feel like you don’t have to stress all the time.”

All the weight that had been in the outdoor air earlier suddenly came crashing down on Smalls’s shoulders. 

“If we win, we win. If we don’t, so what? It was a fun journey.”

“You - you don’t want to win?” Smalls said, ashamed of how hoarse her voice sounded. 

Sniper sighed. “Of course I want to win. It’s gonna make you so happy at the end if we win, and I want to see that more than anything. But,” she ran her hand through the end of her ponytail, “that’s not the point. The point is that you need to be okay with winning and with losing.”

“So if you want to win so badly, why are you even thinkin’ about losing? That’s not how we’re gonna win, Sniper. We’re gonna win by working hard and-”

“Smalls. Why is winning such a big deal to you?”

Smalls took a deep breath. The heat of the air shattered as she thought her answer through, and felt a drop of rain on her nose. Of fucking course it was raining now. “I hate losing. Y’know how I lost that bet about the pigeons?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m always doin’ shit like that. Setting myself up, and then losing. I’m always up for a challenge, and it never works out like I want it to,” she said, the rain hitting her forearms as she squirmed in the swing. “And I just feel like I need to win something, for once in my life. That sounds so stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“And it doesn’t help much that Jack’s on the other team. Like, how do you come back from havin’ a brother like Jack? I mean, he’s like, the perfect son to have, right? He’s just good. At everything.”

“You want to beat Jack.”

“Yeah.”

A moment of silence passed. Smalls watched the patch of dirt close to the door of the camp store turn to mud. 

“I want to be enough.”

Sniper audibly sighed. “Smalls. You are so enough.” Her face looked pained, barely illuminated in the dim light of the sun peeking behind the clouds and the lights that were on inside the store. “You are so much more than enough.”

How did one respond to something like that? Smalls stayed quiet for a few more seconds, and she only heard the sound of Sniper’s breath and the rain on the ground. 

“You hear me, right?” Sniper pulled on the chain of Smalls’s swing and yanked her close. “You’re enough. Win or lose doesn’t change that you are good enough.”

Smalls saw Sniper’s hand shake, not quite strong enough to hold the two swings together. She reached out her own hand and grabbed the cold chain on Sniper’s swing. This pulled them closer together, so their sides were almost touching. 

“Okay,” she whispered. What else would she say, besides accepting that Sniper thought that she was everything she needed to be?

They stayed like that for a second, holding themselves there. Until, that was, every neuron in Smalls’s brain said a collective “fuck it,” and she leaned forward to press her lips to Sniper’s. It was soft, just a terrified and risky brush. 

Sniper pulled back almost instantly. She held onto the chain of Smalls’s swing, but let her drop to an arm’s length. 

“I’m sorry,” Smalls dropped her arm, pulling it back into her lap and looking down. “I just thought. I mean, I didn’t think, I just went. You’re my best friend, and I made it-”

Smalls only felt the air around her when she was pulled back to Sniper’s swing. Sniper was - oh fuck Sniper was kissing her and it was so much more fierce than Smalls had dared to be, rough and sweet and not scared at all anymore. 

When the two of them pulled apart again, Smalls was at a loss. 

“You-” she stuttered, “-me.”

“Yeah,” Sniper laughed. “You, me. Sums it up, I think.”

Smalls rolled her eyes and stood up, despite the worrying feeling that her knees wanted to give out. She grabbed Sniper’s hand and pulled her up, wrapping her arm around her waist like a lifeline and kissing her again. The rain soaked their hair and their clothes, but they were drenched in the warm light of the shop and the cabins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that was enough payment for never fitting a spralmer kiss in the rain into please forget to fall down. You know who you are. 
> 
> (also if someone drew that kiss scene I think I would owe them my life. Or any of this story, actually)
> 
> (also also spralmer is the next chapter so if you've been waiting to see The Boys, you're in luck)


	8. Elmer's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned to have more to this??? But then the boy got angsty and I decided to stop it. (also @heck_the_peck, I stole some of this from our conversation from a few months ago. Thanks.)

Elmer thought that for sure, the shove he felt was just his imagination. A part of the dream he’d been having, maybe, the one where he was running to a safe place, but didn’t quite know what he was running from. But the shove came again, and then again. 

“El,” he heard, “wake up.”

Nope. It was real, and it was Race. 

“Wake up, we’re goin’ out.”

“Out?” Elmer grumbled, rubbing his hands into his eyes. “Is it time for breakfast?”

“No, Elmer, shut up,” Race whispered. “You gotta be quiet, we’re gonna go out to the field.”

He didn’t know if it was his drowsiness or an actual want to follow Race that made him go with the other boy, out to the field. He was glad he was at camp, and felt the need to wear actual pajama pants to bed. He was lucky that he’d been cold before he went to bed, and was wearing a t-shirt. He was thankful that he was lazy, and had left his hoodie at the foot of his bed. Race did most of the work, making sure the door closed quietly. They probably would have been fine if, say, Henry or Blink woke up and realized they weren’t there. But if Oscar woke up and figured it out - it might take him a while, he would struggle to do anything that took brain power - they would have been in serious trouble. He wouldn’t waste a second in letting Wiesel know where they’d gone, and then they’d be in deep shit.   
Elmer stumbled over the steps that led down from the door of their cabin. 

“Oh,” Race whispered through a smile, “careful there. Wake up a little more, El.”

Elmer swatted his arm away. Race laughed quietly. 

“Come on, they’re waitin’ for us,” Race stepped ahead of Elmer, and then stopped, like he realized something. He shook his head softly and stuck his hand out. Elmer took it without lacing their fingers together. Race squeezed Elmer’s palm and yanked on his arm; the two of them took off towards the field. It wasn’t far, but Elmer felt out of breath anyway.   
Spot and Albert were already there, sitting on hoodies laid out on the ground. They were talking animatedly about something or something else, which Elmer couldn’t hear until he got closer. 

“Exactly!” Albert nodded, slamming his hands down onto his knees. “We’re doin’ good. Us not winning has gotta be some kind of a scam.”

“Right. Smalls wants to win, and she’s workin’ so hard,” Spot rolled his head back. “Fuck givin’ us two points for enthusiasm. Give us a hundred.”

“Can’t do that,” Race laughed, taking off his sweatshirt and laying it on the ground. His shirt lifted up a little bit as he pulled it off, and Elmer very purposefully looked away as he straightened it. “If you were gettin’ points for enthusiasm, red would beat us easy.”

“Uh.” Spot looked at Race incredulously, his chest pumping with a tiny laugh. “That’s kinda my point. We’re doin’ so much, we almost deserve to be winnin’.”

“Not if you’re not beating us, you don’t!” Race sat down on the hoodie, and patted next to him. Elmer sat down on the hood, and only felt a little bad about where he was placing his ass. Hopefully Race would do a laundry before he wore this again. Knowing Race, he wouldn’t actually care that much at all about the dirt on the back of the hoodie, much less the awkward seating. “We’re better than you at the games, so we’re winning!”

“Yeah, you’re good, but you don’t care at all,” Albert reasoned. 

“That’s true, actually, Race,” Elmer agreed, giving in. “Our team’s got some skills, but none of us want to win. Even Jack couldn’t care less.”

“Shut up, El. You’re still half asleep.”

Elmer dropped his jaw, letting his voice become a quiet shout. “Am not!” 

“It’s like, you’ve got the talent, but where’s the - the passion, right?” Spot added, his mouth turning up when he realized the implication of what he’d just said. 

Race raised his eyebrows and smiled, his eyes glinting under the starlight. They lit up with that classic look, the kind that showed that his mind was whirling and running fast, and gave a hint as to another reason he might have gotten his name. If those eyes were the windows to the soul, Elmer thought, then opening the door to Race’s soul would be similar to looking at the boy himself: somehow simultaneously overwhelming and enthralling.   
He shook his head and snapped himself out of it. 

“I mean, Spot,” Race grinned, and Spot had already started rolling his eyes by the time Race finished his sentence, “I could always show you where the talent and the passion are.”

Spot scoffed loudly. “Shut up. You know what I meant.”

“But what you implied was so much more fun.”

Elmer finally let himself relax, leaning back and propping himself up on his hands resting behind him. He breathed, for the first time maybe that entire night. The air temperature had dropped considerably even since he’d left the cabin, which made the air a little bit easier to breathe, rather than feeling like he was taking breaths through his shirt. But if that was the actual weight of the air or just the way Spot laughed, Elmer couldn’t quite tell. 

Elmer was laughing too. It was hard not to, really, when Albert was talking like that and Spot was pushing him and Race was chiming in. Was what was happening really that funny? Or was Elmer just tired? Or could it have been another kind of funny. Not the kind of funny like when Elmer stayed up late watching comedians on Netflix, but more like the kind of funny when he saw a little kid in a store asking their mom for candy, or when he left a friend after they’d hung out for a few hours. It was a funny kind of funny, one that started in his toes, of all places, and moved warmly to his stomach. 

“Oh my god, yes,” Albert said, and his words finally gave a name to what Elmer was feeling. “I absolutely had the biggest crush on Zack from the Suite Life. First gay celebrity crush, right there,” he nodded. 

Elmer heard the boys around him laugh, poking fun at Albert’s weird revelation. But he had a hard time keeping up with the joke.

“Oh fuck,” Elmer could almost see the words leave his mouth, even though he couldn’t hear himself. 

“What’s ‘oh fuck’?” Race asked, his face still a huge smile. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“Hm? Oh, uh, no.” Elmer stuttered. “Just, uh, same. Never really even realized it though.”

Albert grinned. “Weird. Zack, and not Cody?”

“Well uh, yeah,” Elmer shrugged. He could do this. This was no big deal. Talking to people - his best friends - about crushes when he might maybe kinda have crushes on them? Yeah. Easy. “He was so much more fun, y'know? Cody was such a stick in the mud.” 

“That’s what I thought!”

Spot sighed and leaned back onto his elbows, throwing his legs out in front of him. “I always kinda thought Davey was a Cody.”

“Yes.” Race gasped. “He so is.”

The three of them discussed the idea, which they must have believed to be the most novel thought they’d ever come up with.   
Elmer couldn’t move. He could only run one thought over and over in his head. It wasn’t even really thinking, it was only feeling. No, he couldn’t like all three of them. One, maybe. But which one?   
Race. He liked Race. Just looking at Race was enough reason to like him, honestly. And then there was the way he looked, the way he lit up when he had an idea or a scheme. And the way he looked at his friends when he came up with that plan.   
But Albert. He must like Albert, right? Of course, he had the face that would make anyone like him. And he was sweet. And he was kind. And he was funny in a million ways. He could talk, or he could sit silently for hours. And he could make a joke that would keep you from crying on your worst days, but he could tell when you needed to cry. Being friends with Albert was like always having a safe spot, an eye of any storm.  
Then there was Spot. And there was always Spot. Sometimes, when Elmer was focused on something, he’d feel eyes on him. Never angry or scary or threatening, thankfully, but rather almost encouraging. He’d look up and see Spot, already looking away and pretending to do something else. Spot, no matter what he told people, cared. And when he cared, he never half-assed it.   
But then there was the way they four were when they were together, like this. It was simple, like this. They could sit anywhere, in any kind of place, and talk and laugh and have fun. They could tease each other, or they could talk seriously, and it was always the same. For being four teenage boys, and particularly rebellious ones at that, there was a kind of peace within the group.   
Okay. So Elmer had at least one problem. Or maybe he had three. Three problems, masquerading as a happy, funny, warm feeling he had when he saw his friends in starlight. Yeah, he had three very big problems. 

“Elmer, you alright?” Albert leaned over and whispered, while the other two kept talking. “You look a little, uh, spooked.”

Elmer laughed softly. “No, I’m not spooked. Just uh, tired. And I don’t like doin’ things we aren’t supposed to do. Don’t wanna lose points or anythin’.”

“Never bothered you before!” Race nudged him gently, lowering his voice. “We’ve done this a million times,” he gestured to the open and dark area around them. “You’ve always loved it.”

“I guess this year’s different, then.”

“El, are you sure you’re alright?” Spot asked, moving forward, closer to Elmer. “You just look a little defensive. Somethin’ wrong?”

“No.” Elmer looked down, and uncrossed his arms. “I’m not defensive.”

“Okay, sure,” Race nodded, turning back to Spot.

Albert moved even closer to Elmer, leaning on his arm. Elmer tried to ignore the heat of Albert’s weight on him. “If you ever want to tell us somethin’, El,” he said, “just know that we’re here.”

“Yeah,” Elmer whispered back. “Alright.”

Not this, though. Never this. 

A car drove by, the lights illuminating the entire field for a brief second. Elmer wondered how the four of them must have looked to someone just passing by. Like four friends, probably, out in the middle of the night, doing the kind of thing that was expressly forbidden in the camp rules. It would have looked like they were enjoying themselves, getting high on breaking the rules. To an outsider, he imagined it looked like how Race, Spot, and Albert pictured it: fun and fine, overall. Elmer couldn’t say he felt the same. While the three of them were getting closer, physically and relationally, Elmer felt farther from them than he had for a few weeks.   
It must have been the stars, messing with his feelings. Looking up at them, it would have been impossible not to feel small and helpless and just a little romantic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so I don't know what's going to happen next with these four, I might have to add another chapter, which will be fun, I guess.


	9. Davey's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only two more chapters after this!! wild, right?

“One last game before camp is over!” Hannah shouted, to a crowd of kids. Half of them cheered, knowing that the game would be fun, or at least worth a lot of points. The other half of the campers sighed, knowing that camp would truly be over in less than a day.   
Davey was one of the more sad and disappointed ones. The amount of weeks he had spent at camp totaled to only nine in the past six years, and yet this place felt more like a home than anywhere he’d spent the remaining 303 weeks. Life was easy at camp, somehow. Maybe it was living in a cabin with all of his friends and his boyfriends, or the sleep deprivation that set in about a week into the camp. Maybe it was the games, and the freedom to scream and yell until he was hoarse, and the inevitable day of vocal rest he had to go on. Or, he sometimes wondered, maybe it was the ability to step out of the cabin at night and see the stars. He couldn’t do that in the city, and he loved being able to point out the constellations. It must have been the culmination of the freedom, he figured: the ability to be a different version of himself than he could be at home. When he tried to express this to Jack and Crutchie, they said they understood it, and he believed them, but it didn’t feel like he’d explained it well enough to fully understand what he felt. And how could he explain what he didn’t understand? All he knew was that leaving camp every summer was one of the worst feelings. Even worse was the knowledge that this was the second-to-last time he’d ever leave camp. Next year, he will have graduated, and it will all have been over. 

He pushed the thought away as Hannah continued. “So, that means we’ve gotta make it a good one!” she called, and Davey joined in the clapping. “We’re adding in another new game: a rock wall relay race!”

Davey exchanged a look with Jack. The blue team captain was, in Davey’s opinion, one of the most passionate men to walk the planet. His heart and soul went into everything he did: art, relationships, friendships, and his favorite sport - climbing. He was one of the stars of the school rock climbing team, which was known throughout the state for winning championships. And yet, Davey couldn’t forget that there were other people at this camp on that climbing team. Spot, for example. Yeah, this would be interesting. 

“So, the rules are pretty simple,” Hannah told them. “And I’m going to explain them to you now, instead of when we actually meet at the rock wall, because I know how you kids-” she looked at Blink “-can be impulsive and try to start climbing before you know what we’re even doing. So, first rule. You don’t touch the wall until I tell you to go.”

Smalls’s nod could be seen from across the room. So could Sniper’s smile at her - friend? Girlfriend? Davey would have to ask. 

“Rule two: line up in your teams, and in the order that you think is best, and that’s the order in which you’re going to be going up the wall. I will get the first two people set up in the harnesses, and after that it will be up to the person who just got down from the rock wall to help the next person into the harness. You must reach the top of the rock wall and ring the bell for it to count. If you fall, you must fall all the way to the ground. You can then choose to try again, or you can choose not to finish, which will add ninety seconds to your team’s time. The team to have all of its players up and back in the least amount of time wins. Get it?”

The teams seemed to agree that those rules sounded simple. 

“Alright, then let’s head up to the rock wall!” Hannah hadn’t even finished the sentence before the majority of the campers were out of the main hall.   
Davey followed close behind his teammates, joining in loudly when they started singing the team song. This reminded him of being a little kid, and running with the purpose of going fast, not because he thought he needed to or because he was scared. 

They reached the rock wall, towering dozens of feet in the air. 

“Alright,” Hannah told them. “Line up in the way you want to go!”

Davey was placed, by Jack, squarely in the middle of the line. He didn’t let that bother him. On any other day, Jack would have been fine with giving one of his boyfriends preferential treatment. Today, however, Jack needed to make sure the team ran like a new car. 

“Okay, let’s get you two, Jack and Smalls, up in your harnesses, and get going!” Hannah started helping Smalls into her harness and had her attached. Jack, of course, needed no assistance. “Now, before you start climbing, look back at your team, wave them goodbye, and make sure they all know that the winning team gets 100 points!”

Davey gaped. He couldn’t remember any game worth more than seventy-five points in the last three years. If they won, then that would tie up every loose end; they would have won the competition with 125 points above the red team. That went both ways, however, because if the red team won, they would beat them, no matter how far behind they had once been. 

“Okay, we’re ready?” Hannah asked. 

Smalls and Jack nodded. Davey’s stomach tightened. 

“Then: on your marks, get set, go!”

David watched as Jack started climbing. He and Smalls were incredibly well-matched, reaching the top at nearly neck-and-neck pace. Jack belayed himself down, Smalls dropping a little bit slower due to her lighter weight.   
Race was next from the blue team, practically jumping into the harness. Smalls hit the ground and got unclipped, helping Spot into the harness as quick as she could. The two boys shared a look before they started climbing. Something was going on with them, and Davey wanted to know what it was. But he wouldn’t pry.   
Spot was a good climber. He was one of the top on the climbing team, just like Jack was. Spot had grown a lot since joining the team, both in his climbing ability and in his team spirit. He’d been awarded ‘most improved climber’ last season, and Davey knew he’d never say it, but Spot was proud. He’d also gained a lot of muscle, which let him scale the wall in a few seconds, leaving Race practically on the ground. He made a face as he dropped down, and Davey could see Race get frustrated, but channel it into climbing even faster. Race rang the bell as Sniper started up the wall.   
Davey hates being mean, but he loves being right, and Sniper was really slow. Mush, from the blue team, was able to pass her like a bullet from a gun. By the time she’d landed, Buttons was already on their way up the rock wall. And that kid could climb too. But so could Blink, who scaled the wall in almost half the time it took Buttons to do it. Blink was down by the time Buttons hit the top.   
Romeo took off as soon as he could, not very coordinated but instead grabbing at as many rocks as his hands could reach, and pulling himself up. He was lucky that the tactic worked, or the red team would have lost the advantage they had. Sarah was halfway up the wall when Romeo got down, and the thud when Romeo landed on his ass reminded David that he was next in line. Suddenly, David was faced with a towering wall that he had to scale. Sarah rang the bell, and he thought his knees were going to give out. She dropped down, waving, as Specs began their ascent. 

Sarah helped Davey into the harness, making sure it was untangled enough for him to step in, and she clipped him in. “You’ve got this,” she whispered in his ear before sending him off. That was right: he could do this. Because he needed to help win this competition, and because Sarah had told him it was possible, he ran at and up the wall, half-pretending, like he’d done as a little kid, that he was Spiderman. And he was doing well, as he hit the halfway point and his hand slipped. 

“No,” he whispered, “shit.” He couldn’t reach back up. His foot slipped off the rock. David and Specs were falling at the same time, only Specs had finished their climb. 

David landed, like Romeo had done, on his ass. Somehow, Romeo had made it look a little graceful. 

“Get back up, Davey, try and climb again, you can do it!” Jack’s voice sounded. Davey did as he was told, his ears ringing and his brain fuzzy. He reached for the next rock, then the next. For a moment he thought about taking the ninety second penalty, and dropping again. Oscar was on his way up, and was close to the top. Davey grabbed at another rock, and moved his foot to where his hand had just been. And then he kept going. Oscar was right there, and David could see him ring the bell. He pulled himself up, Oscar began to belay down, and a glint of silver caught his eye. He stretched his arm out as far as he could. As soon as he heard it ring, he threw himself backwards and he let himself drop. 

Jack cheered, screaming like he wanted his lungs to give out. His entire team clapped and yelled as Davey landed back on the floor, and he smiled, hurrying out of the harness and scrambling out of the way, letting Katherine get in herself. She was more than capable, and he deserved to relax for a minute. 

He watched as Kath hooked herself in, and she zipped after Albert, who was very closely ahead. She gained good ground on him, and they were equal on the way down. Elmer got off to a rocky start, but Henry fell off with a screech after losing his footing, and Jojo was getting hooked in when Henry landed. 

The blue team was already two people behind, but Henry decided to take a ninety second penalty. Crutchie was the only one who still had to go from the red team, and he was hooked in and watching as Jojo moved quickly up the wall. Jojo dropped to the floor just as the minute and a half ended, and Crutchie grabbed onto the rocks. As Morris got hooked into the auto belay, Crutchie began hoisting himself up, using just his arms and one leg to rush up the wall. David watched his boyfriend with a smile. The red team either was very deliberate in putting Crutchie at the back, knowing that he could do this incredibly quickly, or they had tried to put all the strongest team members at the front and made a grave mistake. Based on the way Blink’s jaw was on the ground, it might have been the second. 

“Should I even go?” Morris asked. “He’s already so far, isn’t it point-”

“Go!” Jack yelled, and pushed him. Morris looked like he wanted to fight it, but was too stunned to do anything but climb. 

Davey hated cheering for Morris Delancey and not for his boyfriend, but he found it easier to sit in awed silence of Crutchie’s abilities. The majority of the campers were doing that anyway. He was skipping rocks, flying up the wall faster than Morris could even hope of going. 

Crutchie landed roughly, but stabilized himself by leaning on the wall. 

“The red team wins!” Hannah declared, just as Morris rang the bell at the top of the rock wall. He sighed, audibly and angrily, and let himself fall. 

The camp was in pure pandemonium, split directly down the middle. On the red side, Spot was hugging his team, slapping each of them on the back. Behind him, Smalls and Sniper hugged, and David grinned to himself as he saw Sniper kissing Smalls. On the blue side, however, it was sad chaos. Katherine and Race were visibly upset, looking at each other speechlessly and shaking their heads. Sarah and Elmer had dejected looks on their faces, and Mush and Jojo seemed almost angry that they’d lost, their teeth gritted as they watched their significant others on the other team celebrate.   
At the center of the red team’s celebration was Crutchie, the hero of the day. His red face glowed in all the praise, and Davey smiled to see his boyfriend get the recognition he deserved. He felt Jack’s fingers wrap around his, despite the way that both of their hands were sweating from the pressure and disappointment. 

“Come on,” Jack whispered, and pulled David to the back of the group. He left David standing for a second, and stepped forward to drag Crutchie away from his newfound fan club. 

“That was cool, Crutchie,” Jack grinned softly and kissed Crutchie’s forehead. 

Davey shook his head, linking his hand with Crutchie’s. “It was awesome. Seriously, I’m not even mad.”

“I am,” Jack’s voice got high-pitched. “I’m pissed about it! I wanted to win!”

Crutchie grinned, his eyes glinting. “Sucks for you, Kelly.”

Jack scoffed. “Oh, I see how it is.” His face grew serious, suddenly. “I’m pissed, but I’m proud too. You know that, right?”

Crutchie nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty proud of me and of you, too.”

“Good,” Davey said, “you should be.”

Smalls’s voice, now that her lips had been freed from Sniper’s, rang out. “Good job, pigeons, I knew you could do it!”

Crutchie joined the cheering, happily clapping and bouncing up and down. Even Jack clapped for the other team, Davey noticed eventually, refusing to let himself be angry at his siblings, boyfriend, and friends. 

“I still wish Crutchie had been on our team,” Davey whispered to Jack. 

“Oh yeah, for sure. We would have won, easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not super happy with the end of this chapter, but i think overall it's cute


	10. Albert's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted this to be 10 chapters but looks like itll be 11. sucks for me, good for yall.

Winning was a nice feeling, of course. The ice cream the red team got was better, obviously. It was a huge sundae, piled high with all kinds of toppings; so much better than the wimpy cups with wooden spoons that the losing team got. But Albert didn’t care quite as much about winning as his teammates did.   
Smalls was practically glowing, her hair flat on her face after it had been drenched with sweat during the last game and then soaked again when her team dumped their water bottles on her in celebration. Sniper’s hand was in hers, which Albert thought might make it difficult to eat, but they seemed to be making it work.   
Romeo and Specs sat side by side, practically in each other’s laps, eating from the bowl of ice cream that wasn’t theirs. Albert would say it was weird, if he hadn’t known the couple for so long. They were just being them.   
Jack, Davey, and Crutchie were off at the far end of the picnic tables, Crutchie pretending not to notice as Jack swiped some of the ice cream meant only for winners. Knowing him, Crutchie had probably gotten an extra scoop because he knew this would happen. Davey grinned as he spoke, clapping his boyfriend on the back. His face was red from working so hard and falling in the last challenge, and Albert was sad to see that he wasn’t taking any of the winner’s ice cream. If anyone deserved it right now, it was Davey.  
Katherine and Sarah were pouting over their loss, eating their shitty ice cream silently. Albert hadn’t cared that much about the competition, but for some unexplainable reason, he felt a wave of satisfied vengeance pass through his chest.   
Blink and Mush were nowhere to be found, likely having taken their ice cream and ditched the crowd, now that they knew they couldn’t lose points for it.   
Henry was loudly making fun of his significant others, who, in turn, loudly threatened to leave his ass if he didn’t shut up. The three of them left pretty soon too, supposedly to let of some built up heat from all the teasing.   
Thankfully, another group of people that Albert couldn’t see were the Delanceys. Hopefully, next year, they wouldn’t be back at all. Just one year without the fuckfaces, that was all he wanted. 

Elmer finished getting his ice cream, after a few minutes of stressing over whether to get chocolate or vanilla. Spot was close by, making sure his scoop of ice cream had at least a little fudge in it. Race was over at a picnic table already, eating his vanilla loser’s ice cream. Albert chuckled, grabbed a plastic spoon, and went to join him. 

“Here to gloat?” Race asked when Albert sat down. 

“Well, only if you’re cool with it.”

“Nah, I’m not into that like you are.”

Albert rolled his eyes. Leave it to Race to say something flirty when he knew how Albert felt. Or at least kind of knew how Albert felt. Albert assumed that Race knew how he felt, at least; even though it had never been spoken aloud, it had certainly been implied. No four best friends were really that close: holding hands and sitting in laps and constantly flirting. They weren’t dating, but they were in a gray area. Albert was sick and tired of the gray area. He felt so desperate to have one thing or another, and wanted to either be dating or not dating. Dating was preferable. 

“Hey,” Spot said, interrupting Albert’s train of thought. “Pretty good ice cream, right Race?” he grinned. 

“Shut up,” Race sighed, smiling. “You and Albert, both of you are so arrogant.”

“Aw, you love us,” Spot hit Race’s arm. 

“Yeah,” Race smiled, “I do.”

Elmer’s hand landed on Albert’s shoulder. “What do you do?” he asked Race as he joined the conversation. 

“I do love Spot and Al,” Race explained. 

Elmer’s face paled and froze, but only for a split second. Albert only barely noticed the change from his usual relaxed face to his petrified face to his fake-relaxed face, since it was so fast. 

“Oh,” Elmer said, his voice weighted. “Sure!” He sat down, his hand jerking away from Albert’s shoulder as if he had been electrocuted. 

 

“You okay, El?” Spot asked, reaching his hand across the table. “You’ve been a little off today.”

“Yeah, fine. I’m just a little upset that our team lost, I think.”

Albert could tell that was a lie. Since he’d sat down, Elmer’s ice cream had barely been touched, and Elmer was the kind of person to inhale ice cream until his brain froze. Albert had seen him do it every summer for the past five years. 

Spot seemed to accept it, though. “Alright. Just uh, remember that we’re here to talk to, okay? About anything.”

Elmer shook his head. “Not about somethin’ like my issue. Don’t think you guys would understand. Or like it very much.”

“When we say anything, El,” Race said, putting the lid on his tiny ice cream container, “we mean anything. Even if you think we might hate it.”

“You wouldn’t just hate it,” Elmer said, laughing through his nose, “you’d hate me for it.”

“And I thought I’d heard the most untrue saying when Race said that the blue team could win,” Spot raised his eyebrows. “We couldn’t hate you for anything if we tried.”

Albert and Race nodded sincerely. Elmer shook his head with just as much surety. 

Only then did Albert notice that the whole picnic area had cleared out. Jack, Davey, and Crutchie could be seen walking away, towards the cabins. Sarah and Katherine were long gone, as were Sniper, Smalls, Specs, and Romeo. The four of them sat alone at one wooden table. All of them except for Elmer had finished their ice cream now, which was good, because the sun was beating down so heavily on Albert’s head that it likely would have melted all of his ice cream by now. 

“Hey. I don’t know if this is something you were worried about,” Albert turned his face toward Elmer, “but only the three of us are gonna hear what you say. And if it’s really a secret, we can not tell anyone.” He paused for a second. “Well, Race is kind of a gossip,” he said, making Elmer smile, “but we can do our best.”

Elmer rolled his eyes, a little bit of his grumpiness fading. “Nah. Not quite ready to tell you guys, if that’s cool.”

“Sure,” Race nodded, his face turning towards the ground. “Makes sense.”

“Race, I’m sorry, I just don’t really wanna-” Elmer started. 

“No, no! I get it. You don’t have any obligation to tell us anything. It’s fine.” 

“Race-”

“Can we talk about somethin’ else?” Albert broke in. A knot had formed in his stomach. If Elmer didn’t want to say something, that was up to him, not Race. Lord knew that Albert had kept enough information about the way he felt hidden from his friends. 

“Yeah, good idea,” Spot nodded. “How are you guys feeling about the rest of the summer? Like, after camp and after we go home tomorrow?”

Elmer bit his bottom lip. “Actually, I think I feel a little sick. I’m gonna go to the cabin and take a nap, is that alright?”

“Of course,” Albert nodded. “Go ahead.”

“I hope you feel better!” Race yelled after Elmer as he all but ran away from the table. 

-

The three of them chatted, somewhat awkwardly, for a while longer, about plans for after camp ended and what classes they were going to take. Race and his family were going to go on a weekend road trip, Spot was taking AP American Government and Politics, blah, blah. Albert put in his two cents every time he could, but he would have much rather left to get out of the sun.

“Should we go, uh, play something in the main hall?” he asked. “I’d bet that Jack started a game of bs by now.”

“Oh!” Race nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. It’s too hot out here without ice cream to eat.”

Albert laughed, happy to move, finally getting a little shade as they walked under a couple trees that traced the sidewalk. 

He stopped suddenly in his tracks.   
“You guys, I feel gross. I’m gonna go back to the cabin real quick and change my shirt. That alright?”

“Yeah, go ahead. We’ll meet you there, okay?” Spot nodded, and Albert nodded back. 

“Yeah, sure thing,” he said, and bolted in the direction of the cabin. 

Knocking on the door gently, he turned the handle. “Is anyone in here? It’s just Al.” He stepped inside softly.

There was nothing but silence inside the cabin, save for his own footprints. He pulled his shirt over his shoulders and reached around in his bag, mostly packed up in preparation for when he had to leave, and pulled out his only clean shirt. He figured that he’d just wear it tomorrow too, and then shower and change when he got home in the early afternoon. As he pulled it down and adjusted it so that it fell over the waistline of his shorts, Albert heard a cough from the other side of the room. 

He swiveled around as fast as he could. “Elmer, hey!”

“Hi, Al, didn’t mean to scare you,” Elmer looked up from his notebook, but kept the pen touching the paper. 

“No, no,” Albert laughed. “Not a big deal. Just didn’t know you were here, was all.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Elmer’s lips turned up slightly. “Sorry, should have told you I was here. Just wasn’t thinking, I guess.”

“Do you, uh,” Albert took a deep breath, remembering Elmer’s outburst from earlier in the day. “Do you wanna come see what’s going on in the main hall? The other guys are there, I was just about to head over to see if there’s a game happening.”

Elmer rolled his head back. “Nah. I think I’ll stay here for a while. I’m a little stressed I guess.”

“About what?” Albert asked, shuffling his feet. “It’s summer.”

“Ugh,” Elmer sighed, keeping his eyes closed. “I know. It’s just camp ending, I think. It really hit me hard that I’ve only got a few more years here. That we’ve only got a few more years here.”

Albert grimaced. That had been messing with his head too. “Yeah. Um, but shouldn’t you like, be making the most of every minute then? Y’know, seizing the day and making memories while you’re here?”

“I guess so,” Elmer chuckled quietly. “But not today. Today, I want to stay here. Memories can wait until next year to be made.”

“Good point. Mind if I stay with you?”

“I thought you were going to go see a game,” Elmer said, but he moved over on his bed. 

Albert sat down next to his friend. “I was planning on it, but you convinced me. Memories can wait. I’d rather hang out with you for a while.”

“Are you going to try and get me to talk about earlier?” Elmer asked, closing his notebook.

“Only if you want to, man. I’d like to know what’s bugging you, but if you don’t feel comfortable then it’s whatever.” Albert didn’t want to push. But he did want to know what the issue was. 

Elmer breathed so deeply that Albert could hear it. “Okay, I need to talk about it. But just, like, don’t make fun of me or anything, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I really don’t want camp to end this year because, uh, I don’t want to have to leave you guys,” Elmer’s face clouded over. “And I know we’re still gonna be friends at school, but I feel like it’s so different there than it is here. I like having you guys - and all of our other friends - around me all the time. I love it, actually. Everything’s fun here, all the time. And it’s not like that at school, or at home when I don’t have any of my friends around.”

Albert smiled, almost relieved that that was the only problem. “Okay, that makes perfect sense. The last few weeks have been really great, and you don’t want it to change.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you know we have to go home, but we’ll be back-”

Elmer whispered so quietly that he almost couldn’t be heard. 

“What was that?” Albert leaned closer to him. 

“Nothing,” Elmer straightened up and sniffed. “I’m listening to you.”

“No, what’s wrong?” Albert asked. “If there’s somethin’ else, you may as well say what it is.”

“I said that this crush doesn’t make anything any easier, okay?” Elmer blurted out. His voice was defensive, but not angry. “You can tease me now if you want. I don’t want to go home because I’ve got a crush.”

Albert’s insides turned to ice, despite the way that even inside the cabin, it felt like a million degrees. “On who?” was the only thing he could figure out how to say. 

Elmer stuttered his way around a few words, his mouth eventually hissing out a “sss” sound. 

“It’s Spot, isn’t it?”

Elmer paused, his chest heaving, and nodded. 

Of course it was Spot; who wouldn’t have a crush on Spot? Spot was the best best friend that anyone could ask for. Hell, Albert’s crush on Spot had lasted almost as long as his crush on Elmer, which had lasted almost as long as his crush on Race. 

“That’s awesome!” Albert forced himself to grin. “Spot is a - a great guy, and hey! I bet you guys would be really great together. I mean, my two best friends, together? Power couple, right there. He’d be lucky to have you.” His voice choked a little bit. 

“Thanks, Al. That, uh, means a lot.” Elmer smiled, his eyes losing some of their sad tinge.

“Yeah, um, any time,” Albert stood up. “Hey, I don’t mean to leave you here alone or anything, but I was thinking I’d head out to see what’s going on in the main hall. Y’know, try to make those memories before I leave for the year. Do you wanna come or-”

“No, I’ll stay here,” Elmer smiled, and reached to touch Albert’s arm. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

“I’m always here for you, Elmer, anything you need.” He made his face stay neutral as he walked over to the door, waved at his friend, and stepped outside. 

As soon as the door closed behind him, he felt it happening. His throat clogged up, and his eyes started stinging. Before any tears could actually fall, he managed to run to the other side of the block of cabins, and onto the field. Thankfully, no one was over there. They must have all actually been inside, playing some game that involved forgetting he was supposed to be on his way. His legs gave out underneath him and he flopped onto the ground to sit. Albert felt so dramatic, literally running away from his feelings and collapsing to cry. But he felt that his reaction was justified, even rational. His best friend, his crush, had a crush on his other best friend, his other crush. That was good enough reason to be scared, sad, and a little angry. He didn’t even bother to wipe the tears away from his face. They felt refreshing against his burning skin.   
He felt the vibration of footsteps behind him, and hastily tried to swallow his sobs. Too late, Elmer’s hand was on his shoulder and he was kneeling next to him. 

“Al? Albert, are you alright?”

Albert tried to nod, to say yeah, but his heart - or his brain - or his tears - would only let him shake his head. 

“What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

Yes, but it isn’t your fault. Yes, but I can’t change the way you feel. 

He shook his head again. 

“Then what’s going on, Al? You can tell me.”

Moment of truth. He could do it. “Your crush. On Spot.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t like it,” Albert admitted, feeling stupid. “I don’t want you to like Spot.”

“Why not?”

Albert swallowed. “I like you,” he mumbled. “A lot.”

Elmer’s hand moved away from Albert’s shoulder almost immediately. 

“And I like Spot. So I don’t want him to have you, and I don’t want you to have him,” he wiped at a tear, “and I don’t have any say in it at all. And I know that it’s not fair for me to try to keep either of you from each other, but I get so-” he cringed, clenching his fist “-jealous, I guess? And I don’t want that to happen, it isn’t right, because I don’t own any of you, I’m not even dating you and even if I were, I still wouldn’t own you. But it doesn’t matter, and I can’t think about it, because-”

His blubbered thoughts tumbled off of his tongue until his mouth was stopped, captured by Elmer’s lips pressed against his. Elmer’s hands clasped down on his shoulders and pulled him in close, their knees brushing against each other. The tears Albert had been tasting were replaced with traces of chocolate, presumably from the way Elmer tended to stress eat candy. Elmer didn’t think things through: if it felt right in the moment, he did it. Hence the candy-eating, hence the kiss to speak a million words. 

Albert pulled away first, his breath hitching. “What about,” he closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at Elmer right now. “What about Spot?”

“Al, love,” Elmer smiled, running his hands down Albert’s arm, only touching his bare flesh lightly. He’d called him ‘love’ before, he said it to all his friends. Or, at least, Albert thought he said it to all his friends. Was there a chance he only said it to him, Spot, and Race? “If you like me and Spot, and I like you and Spot, and there’s at least an eighty-eight percent chance that Spot likes you, and at least a seventy-seven percent chance he likes me-”

“You did the math?” Albert broke in, finally opening his eyes. 

“Race and I did. There’s a seventy-six percent chance he likes Race.”

“Of course Race did the math for this. Y’know, you two are like, exact opposites when it comes to this kind of thing,” Albert wiped dirt from his knee and stood up, feeling the lack of water in his system when he stood up. His vision went white for a second, and then he recovered. 

“What do you think of Race, by the way?” Elmer asked, taking Albert’s hand and hopping with him over the curb, landing on the sidewalk that led to the main hall. They began to walk in that direction. 

Albert squeezed Elmer’s hand gently. “Like, in that kind of way? The kissing kind of way?”

“Yes, you idiot. The kissing kind of way.”

“I like him,” Albert said decidedly. “I really, really like him. A lot.”

“I could tell,” Elmer smiled up at him. “And I figured that. Race gave it an eighty-nine percent chance that you liked him, the highest probability of any one of us liking each other that wasn’t one hundred, for us two liking you two, which was a given.”

“I take it back,” Albert rolled his eyes as he walked up the steps leading to the main hall, “you guys are nerds. I don’t like nerds.”

“Okay, sure, Mr. Cool Guy,” Elmer said, stepping through the doorway to the game room in the basement. 

Spot and Race were sitting on the old, green couch. Race had practically splayed himself out over Spot’s lap, and just as Albert walked in, he caught a glimpse of the last millisecond of Spot leaning down to kiss Race’s forehead. 

“Oh!” Albert whooped. “Woah!” 

“You’re one to talk, Al,” Race said, not bothering to move. “You’re glowing, dude.”

Elmer laughed, blushing only a little bit. “I think that maybe, the four of us have some stuff to talk about.”

Albert was already moving the ratty blue couch so that it could be closer to the green one. He sat down on the cushions and explained what had happened out on the field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i love you guys a whole lot for all the comments and kudos.


	11. Hannah's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaa it's over. thank you guys for sticking with this story, i love you.

She smiled and waved as the Delancey brothers passed her, hauling a suitcase each up the sloping sidewalk. They only grumbled at her in return, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something angry at them. The two of them only came each summer because Wiesel was vaguely related to them and they could get in at half the cost. Thankfully, Wiesel was retiring soon. 

A few more kids passed, bringing their luggage to the dining hall, which had been cleaned up enough that the tables could be pushed to the sides of the room. A couple tables would serve as a way for the parents to check out their students and then, well…  
The summer would be over. Every year, at the end of every camp, it was always the same feeling. Like a knot in the bottom of her stomach, comprised of equal parts dread, sadness, and peace. She found herself thankful that there was a word for the feeling of nostalgia, or else no one would ever be able to describe exactly what it felt like. That was what words were for, right? Describing feelings. Mr. Pulitzer might disagree; he was her boss during the school year too, and he often told her off for writing news articles with “emotional words” or “flowery language”. That job was so soulless.   
And that was why she loved this job. Because sure, Mr. Pulitzer signed her paychecks here too, but she was really in control. She chose the games they played, the way points were awarded, the time frames between activities. Hannah had never felt more rewarded for a job she’d done in her life. Those kids had experienced what very well may have been the best two weeks of their summer, and it was because she cared enough to plan, to take charge, and to make a real connection with each one of them. 

Henry, Jojo, and Buttons ran past, chasing each other and yelling loudly. 

“Those kids,” she muttered under her breath before shouting. “Hey! You three!”

They turned around. 

“Is your cabin clean?”

“Yes ma’am,” Buttons smiled sweetly. 

“And your bags are all in the dining hall?”

“Yes they are.”

Hannah gave them a sort of side-eye. “Alright, I trust you. Go have fun ‘till your parents get here. Only a few more hours left.”

They took off again, whooping and hollering all the way up the hill. That must have been Hannah’s favorite noise ever, the sound of those kids laughing. 

Jack, Davey, and Crutchie walked up the sidewalk at a much slower pace than the three who came before them had. Davey had a suitcase behind him, and a backpack over his shoulder. Jack was carrying two duffel bags, and Crutchie had two backpacks slung over his shoulders. She remembered the year that the three of them had gotten close. They were all in the same cabin, and they became incredibly talented at sharing every burden - physical and emotional. They’d never let that drop, which impressed her. 

“Jack Kelly!” she called out, and his head swiveled. She paused, forgetting what she had wanted to say. “Good job this summer. Good leadership.”

He looked taken aback. “Thanks, Hannah,” his face softened. “That means a lot.”

She sat down on the swingset. She’d heard rumors about what had happened here a few days ago, and smiled at the thought of the girls that finally got it together. 

She was proud of the man that Jack had turned into. No longer was he the scared, sad, sixth grader she’d met when she was a middle school camp counselor. Of course, she was proud of every camper here. Katherine, for example, had come out from underneath her father’s thumb. Not that she had ever really been there, what with the protests she’d led in middle school. Romeo was bolder than ever before, willingly singing in front of the camp at the drop of a hat. Smalls was still finding her place, but with every passing day she got a little closer. Specs had gotten themself a cabin that made them comfortable, and paved the way for Buttons to come out in the process. Mush’s softness was his strength, and Elmer was learning that impulsiveness was, in some cases, the difference between angsty indecisiveness and happiness. Some of them may be graduating high school soon, but she knew that they would all turn out just fine. 

Another loud group of kids passed her, four this time: Spot, Race, Albert, and Elmer. The four of them had been found asleep, on top of each other on the couch in the game room yesterday. Some kind of switch had flicked and now their friendship was a little bit more. Not that it was any of her business to care. But she’d always been the camp gossip. 

-

Kids started leaving soon. Davey’s parents took him, Sarah, and Katherine home first. The three of them hugged their cabin mates and teammates, and Davey kissed his boyfriends goodbye, an event for which Hannah looked away. Specs left next, promising their boyfriend that the two of them would see each other next week. Blink was driving himself and Mush home, and they piled their luggage in his car. Miss Medda showed up to take her three home, and they left with minimal tears to their respective friends and significant others. Maybe they would actually miss each other, maybe they’d just miss camp. It was a kind of magical place. Oscar and Morris left, then Race, Albert, Crutchie, and Sniper. Henry, Buttons, Elmer, Jojo, and Romeo all had parents that came later in the day. 

Once every camper had left, Hannah herself hopped in her car and turned the key. It was Wiesel’s job to shut the camp down for the summer, not her. So she could go home without any worries. But of course, she was leaving one home to go to her normal house, and seeing the summer end was bittersweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on tumblr @allbesolucky or @javidblue!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come say hi on tumblr @spot-and-all-his-cronies!


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